


Ink-stained Petals

by WayfaringCrow



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble, Fluff, Gen, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Language of Flowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WayfaringCrow/pseuds/WayfaringCrow
Summary: Inspired by the Tumbler post: Person A owns a flowershop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says "How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?"Keyleth and Percy run a small flowershop in the modern city of Emon. When a raven haired customer storms in with a strange request, the pair finally meet the owners of the tattoo parlor across the street.
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia
Comments: 3
Kudos: 125
Collections: Critical role





	1. Fuck You in Flowers

Tucked into the corner of a small alleyway In the sprawling city of Emon, a brightly decorated flower shop rests in peaceful silence. Behind a front desk overflowing with an assortment of potted plants, a man with shockingly white hair raises his head from a small ledger as he hears the front door bell chime it's twinkling tune, a pleasant smile reserved for customers already forming on his lips. 

A slight crease quickly forms between his eyebrows though, when, through the maze of daisies, daffodils and numerous other plants that decorate the inside of the shop, he is greeted by the sight of a woman with plaited raven hair and anger in her eyes. Not the usual expression worn on the face of someone buying flowers and so his interest is piqued. An eyebrow is raised and the ledger closed when her hand slams a crumpled twenty dollar note on the wood between the various pots and vessels already crowding the tabletop. Now closer, the man can see that her hair isn't completely dry and one quick glance out the large display window that takes up most of the front wall tells him that it isn't due to the weather. 

"Welcome to Ashari Flowers, is there anything I can help you with?" He begins in a cheerful voice before he is cut off by an equally contrasting cold one,

"How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower"

The request is so strange he is momentarily thrown of by it, but Percy has always had a knack for taking weirdness in his stride and now she really has his attention. 

"I'm terribly sorry, but I doubt I'll be much help in this endeavor. Let me go get my manager, she tends to take on the more...customized arrangements. I promise you I will be right back." He turns on his heel, throws one last curious smile over his shoulder and leaves the new oddity of a woman standing there with her arms crossed to find Keyleth. 

The back of the shop always serves to take Percy's breath away, especially during the rare occasions when the sun decides to grace them with it's presence. Opening into a brightly lit glasshouse, the shining rays fall lazily on row upon row of coloured flowers, magnifying their beauty. And this haven of nature in the otherwise busting city is where Percy finds his manager, though it is only because the shop was originally her family's that he calls her as such. He quickly spots her, her red hair radiant in the light as she bends over to lovingly care for her plants. He is loathe to break the silence that surrounds the greenhouse, the peace and solitude that Keyleth so cherishes and the memories that the little room holds for her. As such it is a huge relief when she happens to glance up at him to save him the anguish of disturbing her work. 

"We've got a customer in the front with a particularly strange request and I'm at a loss for what to get her. If you wouldn't mind could you perhaps come an see if you can get her what she needs."

"Oh...yeah, yeah sure, I can try" she straightens and wipes the dirt from her hands on the front of her apron. When she looks up at him a twinkle has appeared in her eye and a smile on her lips and Percy knows that look. Dreads it.

"So, let me get this straight, are you saying you need my help with a customer Percy? 'Cause I think I remember the last time I tried to help, you politely told me that I was "better with the flowers"." They've made it to the hallway and Percy is rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Yes Keyleth, I need your help with a customer, yes I should not have said that and yes I'm sorry," she beams at him in success and he knows with a sickening certainty that she will be teasing him about this for days to come. But by now they've made it to the front room and although Keyleth is still smiling, it's aimed at their customer

"Hi, I'm Keyleth and I've been told you've got quite an odd request?" The dark haired women seems to have calmed down by now, if the softened features are anything to go by and she offers Keyleth a small smile.

"Hello darling, yes my brother and my manager are dicks and for the past month have been been messing with each other constantly in and around our shop, trying to get the upper hand on the other. Today I've been caught in the middle of it and one of my brother's awful pranks hit my poor Trinket instead, so I'm more than a little annoyed at him." The woman let out a breath after her rant, leaving Percy and Keyleth to stare at her in astonishment and fascination. Percy, unsurprisingly was the first to recover and nudged his red haired friend to shake her from her trance. 

"Ok...ay. Let me think," This was the part of the process Percy loved the most, watching his usually timid friend come to life as she tackled a customer's challenging display. Her eyes gained a steely determination and he knew from experience that she wouldn't stop until she had mastered the task given to her. Glancing over at the black haired customer, he couldn't help but smile as he saw her own amazement at the change that had come over Keyleth. She rushed from place to place like a storm, picking up a certain flower, examining it, thinking it over, then setting it gently down again in favour of another. 

"So, to match the story and the sentiment, I think the best combination would be a bouquet of geraniums for stupidity, some foxglove to show insincerity, meadowsweet which symbolizes uselessness, yellow carnations for a feeling of disappointed, and orange lilies that sadly show hatred, they're such a pretty flower with a terrible meaning." Gathering up her choice, Keyleth happily returned to the awestruck pair at the counter. Retrieving a vase from underneath the desk she arranged the assortment with practiced hands. "It's really quite striking! and full of loathing," she said content with her work. 

A smile pulled at the outer corners of the other woman's lips "It is quite a sight, isn't it. Thank you so much darling, it's perfect! Is the twenty enough? I don't have much more" Reaching for her back pocket she brought out a slim, battered purse and started counting through some coins, a small frown crossing her face.

"Well, umm..." "Keep the twenty, I'll take your name instead." Percy quickly answered for Keyleth, who had gone wide eyed with panic at the thought of answering a question far out of her league. Pen in hand, he open the ledger at his elbow and glanced up at the woman who's face had broken out in a wide smirk. 

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Her voice was full of playfulness and flirting as she leaned her elbows on the counter, staring into Percy's eyes. He could feel his checks begin to heat up and he was glad Keyleth had escaped back into her greenhouse at the mention of money. "It's Vex'ahlia darling, whats yours?"

He quickly dropped his face and scribbled the name in his neat hand, anything to distract himself from her. "Percival de Rolo, but everyone calls me Percy," he choked out.

"Well, Percy, it was very nice to meet you, thank you very much for the flowers. I work just across the street in the tattoo parlor, why don't you pop in and I can give you a tattoo as payment." With a final smirk she turned on her heel, leaving the shop as quickly as she had come. Percy was left with a kaleidoscope of emotions competing for his attention. Ten minutes later Keyleth found him with his head pressed to the top of the counter.

"How much do you suppose a tattoo will hurt?" The whisper sent Keyleth into fits of laughter and Percy couldn't help but offer a small smile. Who knew one woman could change his life so dramatically in such a short period of time. And it all started with a bouquet of flowers saying fuck you.


	2. A Repayment in Ink

The anxiety was killing him. 

Vax knew the bucket of water perched atop a door was a childish prank, but it had seemed a perfect fit for Grog. And then Trinket had scampered in, with Vex on his heels. He had locked himself in his room for the following days, waiting for his sister’s fury to diminish. When he had eventually emerged he had done everything and anything to appease her wrath. A cup of coffee in her favourite mug sitting waiting for her in the morning, using the little money he had to buy treats for Trinket. He had even complimented the vase of flowers that had appeared to brighten the desk at the front of the shop. But every meager effort had only served to increase her anger. Only a week had passed but Vax’s nerves were already wrecked. His nails were a ragged mess. Knowledge that his sister was undoubtedly planning her revenge kept him awake at night. He tossed and turned, thoughts of the punishment he would face running through his head. At this stage, anything would be better than the anticipation that was slowly taking over his life.

At least he had the shop to himself today. Vex had headed out for shopping and Grog was spending the day with Scanlan, probably in some tavern somewhere drinking away their profits. It was just him and his thoughts. A dangerous combination to say the least. Vax couldn’t help but imagine the torture that was to come. How would his sister enact her revenge? Switching his shampoo for glue? Too childish for Vex, and surely even she wouldn’t be that cruel. An oil spill outside his door? Uriel, their landlord, would kill them. What then, would Vex deem a suitable punishment? 

Vax nearly fell out of his seat when somebody standing on the other side of the desk very deliberately cleared their throat. “Hello, yes, um, I think I made a reservation a few weeks ago. For a tattoo that is. Though it was quite an informal reservation, now that I think of it.” The man ran a hand through his stark white hair, casting an uneasy look at the dagger Vax had been unconsciously spinning on its point on the desk, scoring yet again another mark on the wood. “It would probably be under Percy, if that’s any help.” 

“Oh, right, I’ll check.” Vax quickly searched through the loose pieces of paper scattered throughout the desk. “Who did you make it with? Please tell me it wasn’t Grog, huge man, covered in tattoos?” His sister had tried to put some order to the chaos that had been Grog’s filling system months ago but the big guy still mostly used scraps of paper to take down appointments, that was if he took a written note of them at all. Pike was still teaching him five letter words. 

“I...I’m the guy from the flower shop across the road, you came in wanting a bouquet? If I recall your first words to me were “How do I say fuck you in flower”? I thought it was quite a memorable event?” The man’s head was tilted to one side and a crease had formed between his eyebrows. 

“Ah, I see you’ve met my sister, she has a certain...way with words.” Vax said with a smirk. “I think that particular sentiment was directed at me, she might have called me her ‘idiot of a brother’? I think that's a favourite of hers.” Was that all Vex could come up with to get back at him, a vase of flowers? Vax breathed a mental sigh of relief, maybe he could finally rest easy and get a proper night's sleep. “Anyway Percy, you have just become my new favourite person, sit you pretty little ass on a seat and we’ll get started on your tattoo, I’m guessing it's your first one?” He couldn’t tell if the blushing was from the mix up, Vax’s comments, or his inexperience but either way it brought a lovely shade of red to Percy's checks, at least, those that could be seen in public. (I am extremely sorry, please forgive me)

“To be perfectly honest I’m not entirely sure what this whole thing entails. Don’t get me wrong, I understand all too well that I’m about to have a great number of needles forcefully jabbed into my skin. But other than that, I’m in the dark.” The small brightly lit room was where they talked through tattoos with clients and it was decked out with an assortment of seats and art supplies, along with numerous pictures on the walls of past work. Percy sat hunched in a straight backed chair, his hands clasping and unclasping, arms resting on his knees, his foot continuously tapping the grubby wood floor. The picture of unease. 

“Well, don't get ahead of yourself, I’m not going to be tattooing you just yet. Let’s start simple, do you have any idea what you might like have done?” Vax couldn’t have been more different to Percy, his legs spread over the arms of a plush chair, a sketch book balancing against his legs and a pencil dancing in his fingers.

“Well, I was thinking that, if it was possible, some kind of black smoke curling and shifting around my arm would be preferable? Nothing major, but a thick enough band of it? And maybe studded with several speaks of light. I was in a fire when I was younger, I’ve read that many people like to remember life events through tattoos?” Vax thought he saw Percy’s eyes glint with a steely determination. He himself shifted uncomfortably, the comment hit a bit too close to home. 

Vax tapped the pencil against his chin thoughtfully, his gaze distant. “Yeah, I think that could work. If it was colour you wanted I would suggest Vex, but a mostly black and grey tattoo would be right up my alley, if that’s okay with you? Besides, I wouldn’t want my sister having you all to herself.” That earned him another blush, he was really beginning to love the range of pink he could evoke out of Percy. “If you don’t have a preference, I think something on your upper arm would be best, less painful as well. 

Percy nodded, a slight smile touching his lips “Well, thank you very much, I feel slightly better about having you make a thousand tiny cuts on my body now. When do I have to come back for the real thing?” His voice had a combination of hesitation and anticipation to it, like the fascination that comes from watching a natural disaster unfold, appalled but unable to take you eyes off the screen 

“I think I’ll be able to fit you in next week if that suits?” Vax let out a laugh as Percy’s eyes widened a considerable amount. “Don’t worry, you're in safe hands! It’s always more fun to take risks and leap into the unknown anyway!” Vax himself always lived life on the edge. It was the reason why he and Vex had ended up at Grog's tattoo parlor, he had finally fallen over the side of the cliff. 

As he left, he thought he heard Percy muttering to himself, shaking his head “What did I do to deserve this? Why are there two of them? And for god's sake why did I agree to get a bloody tattoo?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to write another chapter! With the world as it is and schools canceled I've got time on my hands and what better way to spend it than writing! And I've got plenty of interactions I want to write between characters as well so I'm not going anywhere!
> 
> Anyway, I had a bit of difficulty writing Vax's character in this so I'm really sorry if he seems OOC, I tried my best but dialogue is hard. Also I have a headcanon that Percy blushes very easily and the twins take great enjoyment out of taking advantage of this fact.
> 
> Other than that I hope you enjoy, especially the people who bookmarked and left kudos on my first chapter, even with my warnings that there might not be another chapter! Thank you, your comments and support mean the world to me!

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed writing this. I'm still undecided whether or not I'll write another chapter, I'll see how I feel, aka if I'm not a lazy procrastinator.
> 
> So Percy and Keyleth own a flower shop.   
> Vex and Vax work in a tattoo parlor run by Grog.


End file.
